Northern widow - another one at QUBS

[Mark Andrew Conboy]

All,

Another female northern widow was found with her egg sac under a rock at the Elbow Lake Environmental Education Centre just north of Loughborough Lake in South Frontenac Township. This is my second record of the year and indeed the second QUBS record for the species. It was found by a 13 year old during a walk I was leading for QUBS's EcoAdventure Camp. Naturally, it was the highlight of the walk for the kids. I wonder how the parents will react?

Mark

Mark Andrew Conboy
Operations & Research Assistant and Outreach Coordinator
Queen’s University Biological Station
280 Queen's University Road
Elgin, Ontario, Canada K0G 1E0
phone: 613-359-5629
fax: 613-359-6558
email: mco...@lakeheadu.ca or mark....@queensu.ca
QUBS website: http://www.queensu.ca/qubs/index.html
QUBS blog: http://opinicon.wordpress.com/
QUBS flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qubsoutreach/

[Wilma, Tom and Madison Todd]

We found fourteen Monarch caterpillars on the milkweed in our garden. Five
are now chrysalises and one has died because it was host to a Tachina fly.
Tom, Wilma and Madison Todd
Ingleside

[Rose-Marie Burke]

Oh geez, got them east and south, too close for comfort. Just kidding, now
I'm going to have to turn rocks and look for one. I am no fan of spiders,
but since you posted about the one earlier this spring I have looked at
spiders in the corners. If it's unusual, even if it's a spider, I'm going
to look for it. Let's hope that parents who spend the time and money to
send their kids to camp to learn about nature will react favourably at
finding something interesting.

Rose-Marie

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Andrew Conboy" <mco...@lakeheadu.ca>
To: <natur...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 7:39 PM
Subject: [NatureList] Northern widow - another one at QUBS


All,

Another female northern widow was found with her egg sac under a rock at the
Elbow Lake Environmental Education Centre just north of Loughborough Lake in
South Frontenac Township. This is my second record of the year and indeed
the second QUBS record for the species. It was found by a 13 year old during
a walk I was leading for QUBS's EcoAdventure Camp. Naturally, it was the
highlight of the walk for the kids. I wonder how the parents will react?

Mark

Mark Andrew Conboy
Operations & Research Assistant and Outreach Coordinator

Queen�s University Biological Station

280 Queen's University Road
Elgin, Ontario, Canada K0G 1E0
phone: 613-359-5629
fax: 613-359-6558
email: mco...@lakeheadu.ca or mark....@queensu.ca
QUBS website: http://www.queensu.ca/qubs/index.html
QUBS blog: http://opinicon.wordpress.com/
QUBS flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qubsoutreach/

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[bck...@istar.ca]

On 7/8/2012 8:07 AM, Karen Hunt wrote:
> Greetings to all hike and activity leaders for the upcoming (July
> 17/18) Otty Lake BioBlitz,
> The Otty Lake BioBlitz planning committee is very excited about the
> way the BioBlitz is coming together. Thanks to the support of our
> community partners, our many excellent hike and activity leaders,
> our volunteers and the Otty Lake community we know that it is going
> to be a very special undertaking with many great opportunities to
> learn more about the flora and fauna with whom we share the Otty
> Lake watershed.
> For your information I have attached the BioBlitz promo pamphlet
> which has the most current schedule of BioBlitz activities on page 2
> as well as maps that have been prepared for our use by the Community
> Stewardship Council of Lanark County. I'm looking forward to seeing
> everyone on July 17/18. - Best regards, Karen

* On Wednesday we managed to get to the last few hours of this
bioblitz, finally getting to the heavily privatized shores of Otty
Lake, in the bay where Zebra Mussels were first detected there in
2002. Otty Lake is one of those lakes with a road system that seems to
have been built to impede biotic surveys by shy investigators, since
the roads are not around the lake, but are isolated systems of
tendrils which lead into cottagey private shores, and while we didn't
have time to search out any public shores, we've experienced similar
lakes where public access is restricted to 30m or so at the end of a
single road allowance. This is to preface the remark that if we had
gotten our act together and foraged forth to Otty Lake in 1995 when we
first realized this needed to be done (having sampled its outlet at
the county road), and when its Unionid fauna was intact, we might well
not have been able to reach its shores.

Anyway, by following the GPS, we did arrive at the bioblitz site,
which was at a Scout Camp on the southwesternmost bay of the lake, and
after driving in, and finding the headquarters of the blitz, Aleta sat
down beside the road to paint some wilted Ferns at the base of a Sugar
Maple. Along the roads in, across knolly Shield topography, we'd seen
signs of more extreme effects of drought than we've had here on the
Limestone Plain � whole trees with shriveled foliage in comparison to
the restriction of dead foliage to forbs, which we see on our land here.

We were told that on Tuesday they'd had rain events similar to what
we'd experienced in Bishops Mills, and that the biobitzers had huddled
under the headquarters tent as the white rain poured down. This meant
that the vegetation capable of perking up was perked up, and the
leaves which had not recovered made an interesting contrast to their
unwilted neighbours. It was at such a scene that Aleta sat down,
almost in tne road, to paint an unrevived fallen clump of curled
Marginal Wood Fern fronds and some Polypody behind them (the Polypody
visibly reviving in the time she was painting them - 11h00-15h00).

I decided, since it was Molluscs which had been our main goal for Otty
Lake, and I had only a few hours, to concentrate on the lake rather
than the woods. An RVCA crew was seining fish at the Scout camp's
boatlaunch beach, and this was clearly thronged with drifted shells
and packed with aquatic vegetation, so I waded along the shore on both
sides of this beach scooping up handsfulls of shelly material and
finding...

Viviparus georgianus (Banded Mystery Snail) abundant in drift, both
large & small shells;
Helisoma campanulatum (Bell-mouth Ramshorn) common in drift;
Helisoma trivolvus (Larger Eastern Ramshorn) fairly fairly common in
the drift;
Lymnaea stagnalis (Great Pond Snail) - 1 shell and 1 alive,
Sphearium (Fingernail Clams) - scattered shells -

and all set in a context of...

Dreissena polymorpha (Zebra Mussel) massive deposits of shells along
shore and a fair number alive - some live ones clinging to rocks -10
cm above current water level as if the water has recently fallen.

And then there were the Unionid victims of the Zebras, which were my
primary interest -

Elliptio complanata (Eastern Elliptio) - 2 60 mm individuals alive
near the boatlaunch, and scattered larger dead shells, though the view
was obscured by the massive growth of aquatic plants.
Pyganodon (Floater) - 1 small valve, on a vegetation-bare patch of
old white Zebra shells. At first taken to be the first Tay watershed
record of Utterbackia imbecillis (Papershell) which shows up here and
there in eastern Ontario, but on closer inspection it's got a slightly
raised beaks, ripply beak sculpture, and a posterior flare, which mean
it's a Pyganodon.

With the bottom so densely vegetated, it's hard to guess what the real
status of mussels may be here, but the living Elliptio show that some
are persisting, and it's implausible that the paper-thin Pyganodon
shell would have persisted through the decade the Zebras have been
here, so this species may also survive.

The non-Molluscs comprised...

Orconectes virilis (Northern Crayfish) 1 carapace - the fish folks
caught no Crayfish by seining, so they must be unabundant -
Nerodia sipedon (Northern Water Snake) 1 ca 70 cm boldly patterned
individual seen several times swimming offshore and finally caught
after slowing itself down by swallowing a juvenile Rana clamitans
(which meowed, but went down the hatch anyways, despite the Snake
being captured).
Rana clamitans (Green Frog) juveniles along shore at ca 1/m for entire
shore, also many adults and a few calls -
Rana catesbeiana (Bull Frog) 2 juveniles distinguished from Rana clamitans.

So there wasn't much diversity, and I've now got samples drying to
pick out the smaller snails, and also sheets of aquatic plant scraps
drying, in case the botanists missed some of the species represented
in the drift.

On the way out we stopped at an RVCA boat launch area on Long Lake,
and found it similarly Zebra-dominated, but with living individuals of
the two species of Unionid mussels.

fred.
------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
Island of Biodiversity book
http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.ca/2012/07/just-published-island-of-biodiversity.html
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
------------------------------------------------------------

[Naomi Langlois-Anderson]

A landowner contacted my office today to report that he found a spider that looked like a widow spider. He brought it in and it sure looked like one, but I couldn't confirm it myself. So I sent photos of it to Mark Conboy and Antonia Guidotti (ROM entomological technician) and Antonia replied to confirm that it is indeed a female Northern Black Widow, the most easterly specimen she's heard of in Ontario. This one was found on a patio door in Long Sault. She wants me to mail it to her in alcohol.

Just thought I would share this!

Naomi



P. O. Box 29
38 Victoria Street
Finch, ON K0C 1K0
Telephone: 613-984-2948
Fax: 613-984-2872
Toll Free: 877-984-2948

www.nation.on.ca

-----Original Message-----
From: natur...@googlegroups.com [mailto:natur...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rose-Marie Burke
Sent: July-19-12 9:07 PM
To: natur...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [NatureList] Northern widow - another one at QUBS/milksnake

Oh geez, got them east and south, too close for comfort. Just kidding, now I'm going to have to turn rocks and look for one. I am no fan of spiders, but since you posted about the one earlier this spring I have looked at spiders in the corners. If it's unusual, even if it's a spider, I'm going to look for it. Let's hope that parents who spend the time and money to send their kids to camp to learn about nature will react favourably at finding something interesting.

Rose-Marie

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Andrew Conboy" <mco...@lakeheadu.ca>
To: <natur...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 7:39 PM
Subject: [NatureList] Northern widow - another one at QUBS


All,

Another female northern widow was found with her egg sac under a rock at the
Elbow Lake Environmental Education Centre just north of Loughborough Lake in
South Frontenac Township. This is my second record of the year and indeed
the second QUBS record for the species. It was found by a 13 year old during
a walk I was leading for QUBS's EcoAdventure Camp. Naturally, it was the
highlight of the walk for the kids. I wonder how the parents will react?

Mark

Mark Andrew Conboy
Operations & Research Assistant and Outreach Coordinator

Queen's University Biological Station